I sometimes wish I could ignore stupidity, corruption, and the various and insidious old boy networks that are everywhere I look. I try to ignore them, I really do, but politics is everywhere. And most often, or so it seems to me, the politically motivated are stupid, corrupt and play favors with abandon.

I do not think that women are any more inclined to saintly behavior than men, but when women comprise a critical mass of any governing or managing body, behavior changes. Critical mass theory exists beyond political interpretations. It just helps to describe how people behave in groups.

You can see it in Rwanda where consciously constructed unity among women helped rebuild and begin to heal the country across political divides reinforced by torture, horror, and loss experienced during and after the genocide.

This is as technical as I am going to get. Behavior changes, statistically, in groups dependent upon the composition of those groups.

Promising items from a moral menu does not mean the items can be made, let alone served up in a palatable fashion. This is why blue-collar folks often vote against their own interests. It is easier to believe an overall political party pitch that aligns with how you would like things to be than to do the research to understand who has purchased the loyalty of specific politicians, political action committees, and government access.

I have been extremely upset by a couple of things I have heard said, by women, in the last few weeks. I recently told a woman that I didn’t like the person who owned a certain well-known hosting company. After I explained why I just couldn’t channel any of my funds to this guy for anything, she said, “Oh I can’t pay attention to that sort of thing or I wouldn’t be able to buy anything.” She’s right though; consistency, especially in triple bottom line matters, is difficult. But I cannot understand, no matter how hard I try, why a bit of effort made within the realm of political economy is so distasteful to so many women and blue collar workers.

Perhaps a critical mass of women would make a difference?

The other disturbing interaction happened when I previously had gotten fed up to the gills with stupidity and politics and people supporting companies that outsource everything and will not pay their employees a living wage or provide full-time employment so the taxpayer picks up the check for fail-safes when basic needs cannot be met. I said that I see no reason for me to be providing corporate welfare so corporations can rake in obscene amounts of profit which then does not circulate back into the economy but rather is squirreled away offshore and out of the country only to then have to pick up the bills for basic health and welfare of these same companies employees. In response to this a friend from childhood informed me that no one can find a job where she lives, and everyone shops at Wal-Mart because people can no longer afford the gas to drive to the next biggest town where there are stores other than Wal-Mart. The lack of understanding here was sad, but not unexpected, but what was said next was horrifying. It was that she would much rather, and that we should, pay for sterilization of the stupid, loud-mouthed people screaming about needing their money now, with which she had interacted with in a combined social service waiting area. I was horrified to hear such vile ideas from someone with whomI grew up.

These extremes of wealthy and erudite women who lack the time and inclination to allow their pocketbooks to speak and rural, blue-collar/high-school educated women who do not have the money or inclination to allow their pocketbooks to speak are extremely disturbing in their similarity.

What will it take for women to wake up and take an interest in the politics of the nation and our political economy? Do we have to return, as parts of the country already have, to the days of having our daughters and sisters die with blood pouring from between their legs in back alleys from the lack of access to full reproductive care? Do we allow the people who are to represent and act on our behalf in Washington, D.C. to tank our economy and the world’s, and create a global depression, because they will not put their political parties and political campaigns long enough to do the people’s work? Do we allow media to coordinate their coverage of the story of the day and allow this coverage to be made up of mimeographed talking points that slither from the mouths of agreed upon spokespersons pledged to loyalty by their corporate masters?

If we don’t stop this crap right now, there is no one to blame but ourselves. Surely we are not going to allow ourselves to walk any further along the path to bloody revolution between warring factions.

I can’t bring myself to write about apps for Halloween, or recipes for fall, like a good little Stepford blogger. How can we act? What will it take to get you to act? What should I do?

I started writing this post a few days ago on Ash Wednesday. We are now into the season of Lent. I don't know exactly what that means for Catholics. I'm not Catholic. I'm not exactly a NONE either. What's a NONE? It is a term derived from when a person checks “None of the Above” when asked to check a box on a form to denote your religion. I just discovered the term on Ash Wednesday when I zipped off to check out the blog of a solo RVer. I want to be her when I grow up, except I want the RV to be a solar powered electric powered RV.

I've written previously in other places, if you follow my writing, about being unwittingly indoctrinated as a child into a sort of secular Anabaptist mindset. I've also mentioned that I have Amish mitochondrial DNA. Because of these givens in my life I never had much of an acquaintance with Lent. The notion seemed sort of contrarian to me. It is Spring where I live, even where Spring will not sproing for several weeks, the midpoint of Winter's transition into Spring has passed. Agrarian practices that shaped our still observed calendar require the preparation of the farmstead and homestead for birthing and planting. Now is a traditional time for strategizing about how to sustain life by carefully planned growth. Perhaps that is what Lent is all about way down deep. I don't know. What I do know is that I have thought a great deal about consciously structuring my life, Catholicism, the farse that is quickly becoming the way of at least one half of the political machine in Washington, D.C., and how women can be the savior of all of the world that is touched by any one of these topics.

The problem I am facing is that I pay attention… to too many things, and allow far too many of these things to which I pay attention to touch my psyche. I suspect that many women do this, and some men too. The fact is, in my humble opinion, some of the human population has to be wired to anticipate, integrate, and yes, sometimes even worry. We wouldn't have made it this far unless some of us obcess about what might be.

Because I have experienced episodes of depression throughout my lifetime, my analytic nature can mistake the valid anticipation I experience when paying attention to and assessing patterns and trends in society. I can ramp up to the over-thinking called worry and on rare occasions progress to despair totally apart from anything related to a imbalance I have which my physician and I successfully treat with an SSRI medication.

Being aware of how fucked up the world is can lead to a depressed state. This rational reaction to distinct trajectories of cultural processes in the world is probably distinct from the ongoing depression I have experienced since I was a preteen.

The last couple weeks have found me poundering whether the funk I've been in is depression or disillusionment. After very serious reflection, I have determined that I am disillusioned.

Government is totally disfunctional: obstruction, vengeance, and greedy corruption when we need to be addressing downright un-American ever-widening hierarchical class structure. Democracy is in danger if we don't outmaneuver the evil, mega-rich, corporatist ass-hats who are attempting to overthrow our Representative Democracy, which, though flawed, is the best form of mega-government around because it allows us to evolve.

And I've also been assessing what has happened since I first marched with CODEPINK Women for Peace in late Winter of 2003 as the Bush administration's relentless, irrational drumbeat toward war with Iraq got closer and closer to their goal. I'm going to do a Linky Tool's Blog Hop for March 8th, 2013, International Women's Day and the anniversary of the day when CODEPINK first marched. I marched with them that day.

The changes these Koch-Adelson-Murdoch loving greedy bastards have supported are Un-American and I will do everything in my power to avoid supporting them. I tend to support the viewpoint that says that energy used to work against something actually supports that something because energy is energy period. The only time I have deviated from this is when I participated in protests as a CODEPINK member and that was because information was being suppressed and taking it to the street was necessary to get the information out about the lies told to get us into the Iraq War. Information is neither pro or con, it just is. I'm very glad Hubris was aired last evening. It is very important we do not forget what happened in this fabricated and unfinanced war. The Bush Tax cuts also deserve this type of review. Deregulation,the war and the tax cuts created the financial mess we are in now, and that the same party that promoted all these debacles now wants the poor, working poor and the middle class to pay for their follies. I am viscerably disturbed by this.

One other thing that makes me physically queasy is that people are all abuzz about the abdication of the head an archaic 4th Century construction that solidified political and military control by incorporating religious control into oppressive rule and building empire. The man abdicating his supreme rule was a member of Hitler youth and as a Cardinal he was the ultimate authority over pedaphile priests who were enabled to rape children time and again by church orchestrated moves from place to place. With the war on women raging, and the crimes perpetrated by the Church in covering up child rape by priests, I wonder how any woman can call herself Catholic.

So forgive my lack of cheery or technical posts in the past few days. I've been thinking about stuff, more stuff, and even more stuff. It makes me sad… which is very distinct from depression.

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About Me

I have written and published many blogs over the last 15 years on the topics of Later Born Baby Boomers, Peace & Justice Activism, Virtual Worlds, Gene Stratton-Porter, and Medical Child Abuse. I love research, information and the quest for knowledge. I'm an anthropologist by training, and a freelance content creator by vocation. I love things that make sense, could be, and might be so I enjoy good speculative fiction along the lines of Cory Doctorow and TV shows like Dr. Who and Orphan Black.